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The revelation that the FBI sent a fake Associated Press story containing malware to a teenager suspected of making bomb threats has brought "spear phishing" back into the public consciousness. The technique, which combines malicious software with social cues tailored to the target, has been used by state and non-state actors to attack journalists and rights advocates, including the Committee to Protect Journalists. Spear phishing can be devastatingly effective, but there are simple steps journalists can take to protect their work, themselves, and their sources.

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As we've reported before, there's strong evidence that forces with widespread access to Iran's internet infrastructure have been engaged in large-scale surveillance of https traffic in July and August, certainly of Google traffic, and perhaps many more websites, including Facebook and Yahoo!

If you used the Internet in Iran during this period you should, at the very least, change your passwords, and log out, then log back into, any services you use.

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In August, Google introduced a new, if rather obscure,
security feature to its Chrome web browser, designed to
be triggered only under extreme circumstances.

If you were talking to Google's servers using the web's
secure "https" protocol, your browser makes a number of checks to
ensure that you are really talking to
Google's servers. Like an overly obsessive bouncer, the new code double-checks
the identity of any supposed Google site against a Chrome-only list of valid
Google identities hardwired into the browser.

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When they're creating new features, software designers talk
in terms of "use cases." A use
case describes steps that future customers might perform with a
website. "Starting a group with friends," would be a use case for
Facebook. "Buying a book" would be case for Amazon's designers.

Journalists and online news-gatherers have been struggling
to collect and distribute high-quality information about recent events in
Syria. Foreign journalists have been turned away at the border; local online
reporters have been detained. The quality of Internet and mobile phone
connectivity has been extremely variable, with reports of Net and phone
connections being cut off in selective areas, such as Deraa and Douma. The
Wall Street Journal reported blocks on
social-networking sites, and CPJ has received reports of consistent slowdowns
of home Internet services such as Skype and Google Mail.